Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed a constitutional amendment Sept. 28 banning same-sex marriage. The measure passed Parliament in August.

It says “marriage is lawful only if entered into between a man and a woman,” and emphasizes that “it is unlawful for same-sex couples to marry.”

Criminal penalties for entering into a same-sex marriage will be added in an upcoming revision of the penal code.

Gay sex already was banned in Uganda.

The Canadian province of Ontario is trying to solve its doctor shortage by wooing gay doctors from the U.S.

Openly gay Health Minister George Smitherman attended the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association conference in late September and played up the fact that same-sex couples can get married in Canada.

According to Reuters, Ontario is short about 2,200 doctors and, as a result, 1.2 million people have no access to a family physician.

“Canada is sort of a shining example of the way things ought to be from a political perspective,” GLMA Executive Director Joel Ginsberg told the wire service. “There’s no question that that must be attractive to people in a position to consider moving.”

The city of Toronto refused to proclaim Sept. 23 “Celebrate Bisexuality Day,” arguing that bisexuals already are recognized via the city’s Pride proclamation, the gay newspaper Xtra! reported.

Toronto Bisexual Network spokesperson Rick Innis said he feels the city’s action was fueled by “biphobia” and “if [that] is the case, that’s exactly why we need this proclamation.”

But Toronto Chief of Protocol Barbara Sullivan assured Xtra! “there is no biphobia on our part or the part of the mayor.”

The city did issue a letter from the mayor wishing the network a successful day, which is a lesser recognition than a proclamation.

St. Petersburg’s Frunzensky District Court ruled in September that the Oktyabrskaya (October) Railway broke the law when it rejected a gay man’s application for a conductor-training class, the Moscow Times reported.

The train line’s doctors deemed the 30-year-old man unfit because his 1992 military record said he suffered from the “psychopathic mental disorder” of homosexuality.

The court ordered the railroad to accept the unnamed man’s application for the course, declared that military records cannot be used to determine health status for purposes of employment and said that homosexuality is not a disorder.

The Hong Kong government has appealed an Aug. 24 High Court ruling that struck down a law that punished male sodomy with life in prison when one or both partners are under age 21.

The case was brought by a 20-year-old gay man, William Roy Leung, who said the law discriminated against him.

Judge Michael Hartmann had called the statute “grave and arbitrary interference with the right of gay men to self-autonomy in the most intimate aspects of their private lives.”

The government said it is appealing because of “significant public concern.”

Victor de Bruijn signed a relationship contract before notary with two women identified only as Bianca and Mirjam.

“I love both Bianca and Mirjam, so I am marrying them both,” he said.

Victor and Bianca already were married. They met Mirjam on the Internet and she later moved in with them and divorced her husband.

Victor said Mirjam and Bianca both are bisexual. “I think with two heterosexual women it would be more difficult,” he theorized.

Thousands of gays and lesbians marched in Taipei’s third Pride parade Oct. 1.

“We want society to treat us like normal human beings, and not see us like aliens or sick people,” marcher Vodka Wang, 23, told Reuters.

Pride spokesperson Ashley Wu said that “although Taiwan’s society has become more liberal in recent years, there are still some politicians that make comments discriminating against homosexuals. Gays are also discriminated in the legal system.”

Newly discovered results from a 1949 British sex survey show high rates of homosexuality at the time.

According to the BBC, which found the data in a university archive, the findings were “suppressed” 56 years ago because they were “so scandalous.”

Twenty percent of both men and women told investigators they had had gay sex.

It was the United Kingdom’s first nationwide sex survey.

Thailand has begun offering a free cocktail of anti-HIV drugs to everyone who needs them, under its new universal health-care scheme.

“The main reason for Thailand doing so well is that it produces its own drugs,” Paul Cawthorne of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) told the Inter Press Service news agency. “The drugs are cheap and affordable.”

Out of a population of 64 million, Thailand is believed to have some 600,000 HIV-positive residents. An additional 300,000 people have died of AIDS-related causes.